Yesterday
Congress decided to send me a trade bill that threatens to destroy jobs and
that would begin to reverse the policies of the last 7 years. After 3 years of
hard work by the Congress and the Executive, it is unfortunate that I have no
choice but to send this back to Congress. While there are many positive aspects
of this legislation, some of its provisions would move us a step further toward
protectionism. Others would create new bureaucracies. But my main objection to
the trade bill involves the mandatory requirements it sets down for business to
give advance notice of layoffs or plant closings.

Now,
let me state very clearly that I believe businesses should give workers and
communities just as much warning as they can when it looks as though layoffs or
plant closings are going to become unavoidable. Advance notice gives the
community and the workers themselves some time to begin adjusting. It's the
humane thing to do. But when big government gets in the middle of something
like this -- dictating all its rules and regulations -- well, the humane has a
way of becoming inhumane. And what's intended to help everyday working men and
women can actually end up hurting them.

When
you study the plant-closing provisions of the trade bill, you see that there
are circumstances in which they would actually force a business to shut down.
Once a struggling business issued a notice that it is likely to close or
substantially reduce its work force, then creditors, suppliers, and customers
would disappear, eliminating any chance of survival the business might have
had. Under these conditions, temporary layoffs are sometimes necessary to
manage costs and production. And while the bill does contain a so-called
struggling company exemption, this exemption is too vague and unclear to be
workable. Then, too, businesses will be very reluctant to add workers when it
would put them over the arbitrary thresholds in this bill and subject them to
yet another regime of Federal regulation. Make no mistake, these concerns are
very real. One independent study shows that if these provisions had been in
effect between 1982 and 1986 America today would have almost
half a million fewer jobs.

Yes,
as I've said, our country should support advance notification of layoffs and
plant closings. But this should be decided by bargaining between labor and
management, not by some arbitrary rules laid down by politicians and enforced
by Washington bureaucrats. And if I
feel especially strong about this, I guess it's because I was a union president
for years myself. There were times when the union, the Screen Actors Guild,
took a hard line in negotiating with management. But, yes, there were also
times when the motion picture industry was having its ups and downs, times when the union decided not to press quite so
hard because we wanted to make sure the whole industry remained healthy and
profitable. The point is, it was up to us, the unions
and management, to run the motion picture industry together. We didn't need Washington in on this act.

I
guess what it all really comes down to is this: Just what kind of a government
do we want? For these past 7 years, the administration has limited government,
cutting taxes and regulations alike. The result: the longest peacetime
expansion in American history, unemployment at the lowest level in almost 14
years, the creation of 16 million new jobs. And I might add, in the last 3
years, four times as many businesses have opened as have closed. We could go
back to big government, and indeed many of those in favor of these
plant-closing provisions argue that they're already in effect in many European
countries. Well, to tell you the truth, I'm sort of proud of being an American,
proud that since 1983 the United States has created six times
as many jobs as has Western Europe.

I
don't want to leave the impression that the trade bill is completely bad. On
the contrary, it contains a number of good and important measures, including
new authority for American negotiators seeking to open markets abroad. It also
included my proposal for helping workers affected by business failings by
providing them with training, education, and job placement services -- the
truly humane approach. That's why I want a trade bill and why I so regret the
addition of counterproductive measures that outweigh the positive features of
this legislation. So, I urge Congress to schedule prompt action on a second
trade bill immediately after it sustains my veto on this one.

And now one final message. At noon tomorrow in Washington, hundreds will gather
to pay tribute to police officers and other law enforcement officials who've
died in the line of duty. So, wherever you are at noon, I hope you'll join me
in bowing your head and in resolving to let our law enforcement officials know
that we understand what our mothers and fathers taught us: The policeman is our
friend.